Tempo, time and text in one equation: how many words fit the time you have, and how long your lyrics will run.
Type m:ss, or plain minutes such as 3 or 2.5. Instrumental time is the intro, solos, breaks and outro added together.
Rows are delivery styles. The highlighted row is your current setting.
Section tags such as [Verse 1], [Chorus], [Bridge], [Instrumental Break], [Strofa], [Refrão] or [Припев] start sections. A hyphen forces a split you want counted (mi-o, vi-a). Other bracket cues, like style changes, are not sung and do not break a section. A tag containing "8 bars" uses that length.
Tap along to find its tempo, time the sung part with a stopwatch, then paste its lyrics or type the word count. The calculator back-solves how densely it is sung, so you can write to the same standard.
Worked example. A 3:00 song at 70 BPM in 4/4 with 1:00 of instrumental leaves 2:00 sung: 140 beats, or 35 bars. Sung in eighth notes (2 syllables per beat) with 70% of that time voiced, it holds 140 × 2 × 0.7 = 196 syllables. That is about 151 English words, 93 Russian, 123 French, 98 Italian, 103 Portuguese or 89 colloquial Arabic.
Why syllables, not words. The voice sings syllables. Word size changes from language to language, so the same two minutes hold about 150 English words but only about 90 Russian ones, while the syllable count stays the same.
Tempo alone does not set density. 70 BPM sung in sixteenths moves as fast as 140 BPM sung in eighths. Suno and tempo detectors often report half or double the felt tempo, so tap it to check. The delivery setting is where that choice lives.
Sung share is breath. Lines stop for breath, end on held notes and leave rests before the next line. 60–75% is typical for melodic singing. Spacious ballads sit lower; patter and rap sit higher.
How syllables are counted. Russian and other Cyrillic text counts vowel letters, which is exact. English uses spelling rules plus an exception list and is right about nine times in ten. Arabic counts short-vowel marks when the text is voweled, and otherwise estimates from the letter count, within about 15%. Each word is counted by its own script, so mixed-language songs work.
Italian, Spanish and Portuguese split vowels the way the languages do (po-e-ta, dí-a, gio-ia, Ma-ri-a in Portuguese) and merge a final vowel with the next word's first vowel (sinalefa: mi_amor, que_arde), as sung lines usually do. Italian mio, mia, Dio and via count as one syllable, as they are usually sung mid-line; write mi-o to count two. Turn sinalefa off for a deliberately separated, declaimed setting.
French has two modes. Chanson counts the mute e as a sung syllable (ai-me, mo-no-to-ne) and elides it before a vowel (u-n'a-mie). Pop drops it (aim', monoton'). Endings in -ent are always counted, so a pop line with plural verbs may read one syllable long.
What Suno does with the budget. Suno does not follow a timing plan. Lyrics well over the budget get rushed or make the song run longer; lyrics well under it get held notes, repeats or instrumental filler. Staying near the budget lets it phrase naturally. Lines that share a melody should carry similar syllable counts; the red flags in Lyrics → Time mark the ones that don't.